1. Technical Field
The invention relates to powered and unpowered missiles having freely rolling tails.
2. Description of the Related Art
Guided missiles and projectiles have previously utilized simple gimbaled semi-active laser (SAL) terminal seekers for guidance to a target or other desired location. SAL seekers provide some measure of guidance, while maintaining loose requirements in terms of induced pointing errors, errors due to undesired changes in orientation of the seeker. More recently, imaging infrared (IIR) and millimeter wave radio frequency (MMW) seekers have been employed. Among these new types of seekers are uncooled focal point array seekers, which are a type of IIR seeker. Such new seekers may reduce cost, weight, power requirements and/or complexity. However, they may have longer signal integration times, and may indeed have requirements for stability that are a factor of ten more stringent than with older types of seekers, such as SAL seekers.
It will be appreciated that improved stability would be desirable in missile platforms for unaided autonomous acquisition devices such as IIR and/or MMW seekers.